... and then in the very next sentence I said quieting of price action .. so, ... yeah ... I swear you can't write anything on this forum without people deliberately trying to &^%$ with you for no reason.
When one is seeking a better understanding of something, is more productive to use proper terminology, so there is clarity and consistence of intent. Google reports that "falling": I have no interest in " &^%$ with you"! Just trying to ascertain what you were really seeking. My surprise, was that your post seems to be opposite from your title, and merely wanting to verify.
So yeah, please regard the five times I mentioned falling price, including in the title of the thread, including in the line immediately following the one you're talking about, including in the two examples I gave of sample trades .. to mean that I meant falling price volatility. Thank you. //rolls eyes// Not that it would have even mattered much if I had meant a total lack of price movement ... since there's probably a way to trade that too.
A few of us here are engineers ( and don't do "drama"), so it is very difficult for us to weed thru rants. (most will loose interest at first sign of drama) Is this statement from you, what you really are interested in "strategies people use to trade decreasing volatility" Please be aware, we can only observe what you STATE, not what you wish you would have stated! If above is correct, have you considered Contango trades related to SPX? Trades that profit with "S&P 500® VIX Short-Term Futures IndexTM" erosion.
Decreasing volatility very hard to discern in price but more like waiting for events to happen volatility will go down, like waiting for FOMC to be released, but make any coin on this as it maybe already factored into the options. Whereas there are chart patterns that have possibility of increasing volatility, so you can study up looking for patterns so if markets shows good chance of going up, means good chances puts will decline. Timeframes of monthlies can show declining option values based off trend and standard deviations when price goes sideways in companies that are more prone to go sideways, but they are often smaller priced stocks and options not going to be worth much.
I'm a programmer, but that doesn't mean I'm a candy ass. Thank you for an actual answer to my question, I'll check it out.
I'm still trying to figure out if it can be predicted. Of course, if I can't figure it out, doesn't mean it can't be figured out, just that I wasn't able to do it. Thanks for the response, I really appreciate it. What you said is all I have so far, just declining price on options as the price changes become lower. I remember this in practice from 2008/2009 when we were getting capitulation on the downside, I remember being amazed at how quickly the premium went away on options after those events as the VIX subsided. I'd be surprised if there weren't other ways to trade it, but I really can't think of them, thus the post to see if anyone else had any ideas. I'm going to read up on what stepandfetchit is saying and see if that's a good lead.
If a stock is trading sideways, option traders use options spreaders to generate income. Personally, I have not been very successful using options spreads so, I just gave it up. Options spreads give you a fixed amount in the premiums you collect. If the trade goes against you, you stand to lose several times that! Far easier to follow a trending stock and trade it based on direction. Go long via call options, short via put options. I trade options mostly, directionally. Use proper position size to mitigate risk.
I appreciate the helpful response, I'm checking using spreads in this way. On just using calls/puts for directional, there are a pile of ways to use options and that's only one way. I tend to always default to options when I think there's a top and we're going to move significantly lower in a certain period of time because it's very low risk to buy puts that are near in time and out of the money ... low investment, high payoff, like a lottery ticket. That said, that trade rarely happens.